INSECTS IN GENERAL. 36 



is, or ought to be, unnecessary to add, that the improvement 

 of the mind entirely depends upon them. Yet these remarks 

 are not, perhaps, wholly superfluous in an age which pro- 

 fesses to convert the acquisition of knowledge into sport, to 

 make men wise without the trouble of thinking, and learned 

 without the toil of study. 



In this general sketch of insects, we propose to confine our 

 observations as much as possible to what is common to the 

 class, without a repetition of the text, while we reserve what 

 is peculiar to each order for the succcessive supplementary 

 remarks on each. We shall commence with some physiolo- 

 gical reflections, which seem necessary to be premised for the 

 purpose of determining the rank to which insects are entitled 

 in the animal creation. 



It is perfectly known, that the general laws by which 

 inert bodies seem solely regulated, are counteracted or modi- 

 fied in those which possess life. The phenomena resulting 

 from this sort of struggle, evidently depend on so many 

 apparatus of organs, or instruments, with which such bodies 

 are especially provided, for this very purpose. This charac- 

 ter of the constitution of all living beings, which enables them 

 to resist the constant action of natural laws, continually tend- 

 ing to their destruction, and the re-union of their component 

 parts with the common mass of the elements, has been termed 

 mtal power, or life. This is a conventional term, by which 

 is expressed a series of actions, very different from each 

 other, though generally concurring to one and the same end 

 — the preservation of the individual, or of the race. 



Physiologists have given the term of functions to each of 

 the principal actions of life, performed by systems of organs, 

 or series of instruments, often altogether different from each 

 other in their structure and mechanism, but productive of 

 the same effect. 



The vital functions are all referable to two grand series of 



